Every week I pick out the top 10 government jobs by a variety of job types at our jobs.govloop.com Part of doing this each week has actually gave me a much better sense on government job openings – what agencies and job types are hiring.
Here’s my 3 tips based on this information:
1) Don’t rule out DOD or VA – Literally 50% or more of job openings each week are DOD or VA openings. If you aren’t open to these openings, you have cut your chances in 1/2 just there.
2) Pick your job series wisely – Here’s the number of job openings in the past week on USAJOBS by opening:
-117 acquisition jobs, 16 auditing jobs, 51 budget job openings, 14 communication/public affairs jobs, 130 HR jobs, 212 IT jobs, 73 program management jobs, and 202 generalist jobs (program analysts)
So here’s the issue – if your career is focused on being on auditor or communications professionals, there’s just not that many openings and you need to be aware of it. Literally 10X more IT jobs.
3) Check out generalist openings – Don’t miss out on some good openings tied to your niche. The generalist program analyst series as well as program manager series have a lot of really interesting jobs that could easily be placed in a specific IT or HR or Auditing series. I’ve seen roles that are Acquisition directors or Deputy CIO or Association Workforce Directors that I would have guessed would have been under IT/HR/Acq but often aren’t (sometimes they are cross-posted there as well but not always)
Looking for more information on government jobs? Check out GovLoop’s salary calculator.